Reaching and empowering women - Genfinance

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BOX 3 Possible gender indicators for insertion into social performance management Client level 1. Percentage of women clients who know and understand the terms of the MFI’s fservices, including the range of products available, the cost of credit (interest rate, declining interest), interest paid on savings, premium paid on insurance, and terms of payout; 2. In mixed-sex programmes, percentage of women accessing larger loans and higher-level services; percentage of women in leadership positions; 3. Percentage of women clients with enterprise loans who are themselves working in the economic activity for which the credit is used (by themselves or jointly with husband in a household enterprise – disaggregated). Staff level 4. Percentage of senior staff who are women, and gender equality of pay; 5. Existence of a written gender policy produced through a participatory process with staff; staff aware of its contents and mechanisms for implementation. Source: 1-3 from Frances Sinha, Indicators related to gender – for social rating. Unpublished draft for Micro-Credit Ratings International Ltd. (M-CRIL). 20
III. From access to empowerment: Designing financial products The outcomes of programmes to provide financial services depend greatly on whether products are designed for particular client groups and contexts, on how products are delivered, and on the organization responsible for delivery. Product design is rarely gender neutral, and inevitably affects household and community relations – for good or ill. It may either reinforce or challenge the prevailing gender inequalities that shape women’s needs and priorities, their access to different types of services, and the degree to which they benefit. Women have fewer and different resources for accessing financial products. Their different balance of opportunities and constraints affects how and how much they benefit from various products. Women’s gender role and gendered expectations affect their expressed short-term practical needs, as well as their longer-term strategic needs to build assets, access markets, decrease vulnerability, and increase information and organization. Finally, as discussed previously, products accessed mainly by men may reinforce or challenge gender inequalities through the implicit or explicit assumptions made about male and female roles and power relations within households and communities. This affects the products’ potential contributions to poverty reduction and local economic growth. Research on women’s access to finance in the 1970s and 1980s focused mainly on lack of credit as a constraint to economic activity. In the 1990s, with the rise of microfinance, most debates on product design focused on issues of financial sustainability: interest rates on loans, the desirability of mobilizing savings, and the need for insurance products to reduce the risk to organizations of default. A widespread consensus developed about how to increase women’s access to financial services, based on poor women’s access to resources and power and the particular physical and social assets they could contribute to programmes (box 4). Products were very limited to simplify management for field staff, generate predictable cash flows for programme managers, and be comprehensible to clients. Many programmes had only one loan product, with compulsory savings as a condition for accessing loans 23 and, in some cases, compulsory insurance for the assets. These measures increased women’s access to financial services, but often had limited impact on incomes. Loans were too small, and repayment schedules inappropriate, for activities that had a time lag between investment and returns. Although suited to trade in urban areas and small-livestock enterprises, the loans were ill adapted to agriculture, large-livestock enterprises, or new and more risky economic activities. Where savings and insurance payments were compulsory, these not only often failed to benefit clients, but also created problems with household financial management. Poor women, like the rest of society, have a variety of financial needs, which they seek to address through diverse types of financial provision. Rural microfinance now covers a range of different products including the following 23 This was the case with MFIs and those NGOs legally permitted to collect savings. 21
Page 1 and 2: Gender and rural microfinance: Reac
Page 3 and 4: Contents Acronyms 3 Introduction 5
Page 5 and 6: Acronyms ACORD ANANDI BRAC CGAP DFI
Page 7 and 8: Introduction IFAD’s overarching g
Page 9 and 10: and issues, and, currently, a lack
Page 11 and 12: FIGURE 1 Microfinance and women’s
Page 13 and 14: Rather, these gender differences an
Page 15 and 16: that the empowerment process must h
Page 17 and 18: Organizational culture plays an imp
Page 19 and 20: BOX 1 Mainstreaming gender: Element
Page 21: It is possible for these changes in
Page 25 and 26: BOX 4 Increasing women’s access t
Page 27 and 28: The following sections discuss gend
Page 29 and 30: The loan products available in rura
Page 31 and 32: BOX 6 Savings products Examples of
Page 33 and 34: BOX 7 Insurance programmes for wome
Page 35 and 36: large money transfer operators (Wes
Page 37 and 38: BOX 8 Financial literacy Self-Emplo
Page 39 and 40: discriminated against, or where the
Page 41 and 42: BOX 10 Mainstreaming empowerment in
Page 43 and 44: Programmes do not need to be women-
Page 45 and 46: BOX 12 Savings-and-credit groups: A
Page 47 and 48: has abandoned its original model, t
Page 49 and 50: In India, many organizations are in
Page 51 and 52: Land titling, India The Orissa Trib
Page 53 and 54: Women are often keen to develop the
Page 55 and 56: BOX 16 Measures to promote an enabl
Page 57 and 58: Quality of service • Products wil
Page 59 and 60: Annexes: Decision checklists for ge
Page 61 and 62: Practice Recruitment and promotion
Page 63 and 64: General Questions • Are products
Page 65 and 66: Large versus small loans • Women
Page 67 and 68: Returns to capital • Access quest
Page 69 and 70: C. Programme design: Rural microfin
Page 71 and 72: D. Gender impact checklist Gender i
Page 73 and 74:
• Even if women do not use the in
Page 75 and 76:
Groverman, V., and J.D. Gurung (200
Page 77 and 78:
Rose, K. (1992) Where women are lea
Page 79:
International Enabling poor Fund ru
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